January 01, 2009

Many of us will find that our retirement savings will be substantially eroded. From an organic standpoint, this was to be expected. In nature, it is only prudent to store enough to get through the winter season. Our retirement plans assumed that we could store up decades worth of "nuts" and this is just plain nuts in an organic or natural world -- the world that we will revert to either willingly or unwillingly. Bottom line is that most of us will be working for much of the rest of our lives. Depending on how we structure this work, it can either be pleasant or a hellish experience.

Most of us will not be able to pay for expensive college educations for our children. "Higher" education will have to be restructured and it's about time.

We will be forced to transition away from an energy-intensive lifestyle to one that uses less energy. This will mean smaller and more energy efficient living quarters. It also means that big, inefficient homes will decline -- yes, even further -- in value.

We will shift from an emphasis on financial engineering to sustainable development engineering.

Currently, we are all scrambling to make a living. This scrambling makes it difficult to be bodhisattva-like. We can transition to a system that encourages us to find right livelihoods.

Independence will mean being near our food sources and possibly having our own paradise -- a walled garden.

It makes sense to integrate education, work, and leisure in a comprehensive institution/system that also integrates Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Where would you rather have your wealth stored? In a fund in which the principles have multiple houses and a big office or in an asset-backed account that is administered by a group of independent scholars that have taken an implicit vow of non-accumulation and sustainable living?

A fitting "post"script:

Right living is no longer the fulfillment of an ethical or religious
demand. For the first time in history the Physical survival of the
human race depends on a radical change of the human heart. However, a
change of the human heart is possible only to the extent that drastic
economic and social changes occur that give the human heart the chance
for change and the courage and the vision to achieve it. [p.9&10]